


Magpie

by jonessjughead



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner Drinks Tea, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, clint is a cutie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:34:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonessjughead/pseuds/jonessjughead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is a fucking magpie when it comes to missions. Obviously, he does his job, but there's always something that distracts him. He is not just drawn to shiny things. He genuinely finds all this stuff interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magpie

Clint was a fucking magpie when it came to missions. It didn't piss Steve off so much as it made him sigh like he didn't know what because one minute Clint would be 'coming' and the next he'd show up at the rendezvous point with his new souvenir. So far, in about two years working with him, he'd brought back:

\- 18 kittens  
\- 12 puppies  
\- 8 babies  
\- 7 toddlers  
\- 47 pieces of tarnished, fucked up jewelry  
\- 23 half burned pictures  
\- 13 plastic hair clips shaped like stuff  
\- a pregnant woman  
\- a half melted phone  
\- 2 shades of nail polish  
\- 18 pizzas (from a pizza shop)  
\- a velociraptor skull (best not to ask)  
\- 2 teens  
\- 9 books  
\- a half melted shoe  
\- approximately 76 rubber bands  
\- an open can of Pringles (which he wasn't allowed to eat)  
\- 9 broken hearing aids  
\- Steve's shield  
\- 4 dildos from varying apartments, giggling childishly while Steve made him throw them away  
\- approximately 42 small birds

That wasn't even the entire list.

Steve had made Clint get rid of anything living immediately. and he's pretty sure Clint kept the pictures even though he told him they weren't his. He wore the nail polish sometimes, his favorite was a nice purple that made him swear profusely while applying it, but otherwise spent his time painting Natasha's nails while she dozed on the couch. He settled himself at the end of the couch and let her stretch her legs across his lap. He was actually pretty good at painting nails. Upon any questions regarding his even coats, he just shrugged, answered that in his old apartment building there were plenty of kids who liked makeovers. He'd kept the apartment, as a safe place to go back to. Natasha had been there plenty of times. he was pretty protective of all the kids. It was nice.

He bent over the jewelry, polished and fixed it up the best he could. Sometimes he gifted them to Natasha, but mostly he kept them in a little stash. Even if Tony pulled a joke, he really did like to look at how shiny they were. He kept the books to read late at night, shot rubber bands at everyone- until Steve threatened to confiscate them.

He approached Bruce after a mission, when he was back to being the good ol' doc and looking tired as ever. He scurried up holding something close to his chest, looking absolutely proud as he held it out to him. It was a teacup, with excessive amounts of flowers on it. Really, it looked like something grandma might keep in her china cabinet. There was a chip on the rim, but otherwise looked pretty intact. Clint just smiled, promised he'd washed it. "For your tea and stuff." he said while Bruce took the cup, delicate and small as it was. He just looked so proud of himself that Bruce had to take it, looked at it closer. It was old and busy, but as he stared, it _did_ look pretty. Clint retreated with a smile after he said thank you.

He once went straight up to Tony and shoved a pack of almost-all-there crayons at Tony, who remained confused until he explained in minimal words that they were for Dummy. That was the start of Tony finding Clint and Dummy filling coloring books at two in the morning, when Clint couldn't sleep and wouldn't wake the rest of the Avengers. He had footage. It was adorable.

He braided Thor's hair with practiced ease, used some of the hair clips on him and at least four to make Bucky look rad as hell. Every time he found a refrigerator magnet he stuck it to Bucky's arm. It was good for setting reminders. Not that Bucky was pleased to wake up to approximately 30 pages of varying sizes, ranging from shopping lists, to reminder post-its, to a Clint and Dummy drawing. He also never said that he wanted it to stop. It was a harmless thing, really, that made him think of his arm as less 'weapon of destruction' and more 'reminder refrigerator'.

Sometimes they'd go up to one of Clint's nests, which were actually separate from his room and increasingly difficult to get to. The one above his closet was his treasure trove. It was full of junk, the hairclips and jewelry and books and, sitting atop a milk-crate bookshelf, the velociraptor skull. They weren't sure if it was comforting or unsettling, when they'd look around and see the half burned pictures plastered up on the walls, scattered around. He'd sit in his nest of blankets and pillows, tip his head, and make up stories for each one. It was weird, maybe, but he just thought it was _so_ cool that these were tarnished pieces of someone's life. They would be able to look at it, know exactly what was happening, what the weather was like, what was missing in that burnt corner. For being a past assassin, he got really poetic about his collection. He was a magpie, collecting objects of interest as he saw them. He smiled and showed them proudly his little collection at the end of each mission, then squirreled them away to his nest. He was entertained, and fascinated, and the rest of the team let him do it because he enjoyed the little things in life.

Either that or maybe he was turning into a hoarder. Totally Tony's suggestion.

**Author's Note:**

> This was lame sorry~ but thanks for reading anyway!


End file.
